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South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley signed legislation on Thursday to permanently remove the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol grounds, following an emotional debate spurred by the massacre of nine black churchgoers last month. The rebel banner will go to the "relic room" of South Carolina's military museum in Columbia, the state capital. "The Confederate flag is coming off the grounds of the South Carolina State House," Haley said to cheers and applause.

U.S. authorities foiled attacks planned around the Fourth of July, arresting more than 10 people in the month before the holiday who were inspired by Islamic State online recruitment, FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday. "I do believe our work disrupted efforts to kill people likely in connection with July 4th," Comey told reporters at the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Separately, a national security source said multiple overseas plots by Islamic State sympathizers had also been halted in recent days.

In the wake of the massacre of nine African-Americans — including a state senator — at a historic black church in Charleston last month, the governor of South Carolina has signed legislation to remove the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag that has flown outside the Statehouse. Authorities describe the shootings as a hate crime, and Dylann Storm Roof, the white suspect charged with murder, has appeared in widely seen photos holding Confederate flags. The landmark decision to remove the flag comes five decades after it was raised to protest the civil rights movement. Here's a brief explanation of the Confederate battle flag, a historic but deeply divisive symbol that remains present in the American South.

NEW YORK (AP) — IBM says it has achieved a breakthrough in making computer chips even smaller, creating a test version of the world's first semiconductor that shrinks down the circuitry by overcoming "one of the grand challenges" of the tech industry.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trying to strike a bipartisan chord, the Senate worked Thursday on a major revision of the 2002 No Child Left Behind law, a day after a Republican-led rewrite just barely passed the House.

A Utah doctor has been sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for murdering his ex-wife in 2011 even as he continued to claim in court that he was not the killer. "I did not kill Uta. Uta Von Schwedler, a 49-year-old HIV researcher, was found dead by her boyfriend in an overflowing bathtub at her home in the city's fashionable suburb of Sugar House, with a near-lethal amount of the anti-anxiety drug, Xanax, in her system.

A Pennsylvania man convicted of raping his wife's teenage daughter in an effort to conceive a baby the couple could raise as their own was sentenced on Thursday to up to 27 years in prison, a prosecutor said. Gary Machinshok, 29, of Wilkes-Barre was sentenced on Thursday after pleading no contest last year to first-degree rape and other charges related to the abuse of the 15-year-old girl and her 11-year-old sister. Prosecutors said the girls' mother, Misty Machinshok, 33, was unable to have another child and wanted the 15-year-old girl to become pregnant so she could raise the baby.

Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC) moved this week to delay lawsuits by a conservative group alleging that the schools unfairly limit the number of Asian-American students admitted. The universities have cited last month's U.S. Supreme Court decision to revisit a white student's lawsuit against the University of Texas that claims consideration of an applicant's race violates the Constitution. The schools say the lawsuits against them should be suspended until the Supreme Court rules on the Texas dispute, likely by June 2016.

DRUMMOND, Mont. (AP) — The Missoula County sheriff's department is seeking donations on behalf of a 74-year-old man who lost his life savings on the false promise of receiving millions of dollars and a Mercedes Benz in a sweepstakes scam.

By Alex Dobuzinskis LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Marion "Suge" Knight, who is charged with murder for running over a man at a California hamburger stand, plans to produce a video showing an attacker brandished a gun just before the fatal incident, his attorney said in court papers. Attorney Tom Mesereau gave few details on the video in a motion submitted on Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, including how it was shot and how Knight obtained it. Knight, 50, is charged with murder, attempted murder and two counts of felony hit-and-run in connection with a Jan. 29 confrontation in the parking lot of a hamburger stand that left one man dead.

"The recent statements surrounding Mexican immigrants by Donald Trump do not in any way align with my personal core values," Zakarian said in an e-mail. Zakarian, who runs a string of restaurants including The Lambs Club and the National in New York City, said Zakarian Hospitality employs many immigrants from all over the world. On Wednesday, José Andrés said he would not open a Spanish restaurant in the hotel coming up in Washington DC's Federal Post Office building.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Thursday it would rename three navigational waypoints that are currently named after Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump. FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the so-called "fixes" are used by pilots as waypoints to determine their position on a route. The three at issue are located near Palm Beach International Airport in Florida.

An overdose of over-the-counter cold medicine caused the death of two children whose bodies were found in their gas-filled home in Connecticut, and their mother, who had said she stabbed them, remained charged with murder, police said on Thursday. Autopsies concluded this week by the state's chief medical examiner on Aleisha Moore, 6, and Daaron Moore, 7, determined they died from acute intoxication of an antihistamine used to treat cold or allergy symptoms, East Haven police said. The children were found dead and their mother, LeRoya Moore, injured when police and firefighters were called to their East Haven home on June 2 for a medical emergency.

BRISTOW, Okla. (AP) — An Oklahoma prosecutor is considering felony grand larceny charges against a Wal-Mart manager and his stepdaughter after another man stole about $78,000 from the store while disguised as an armored truck driver.